authentic, intimacy, marriage problems, Uncategorized
5 Must-Try Tips for Reviving a Sexually-Dead Marriage
Feb
So it’s been awhile, you say?
Awhile since the two of you genuinely enjoyed sex.
Or even had sex.
The circumstances that usher a married couple into little or no sex are varied, and it’s possible I’ve heard them all.
Some of those circumstances are rooted in painful betrayals, like abuse, infidelity and pornography use.
Some are fueled by empty promises of “Not tonight. But maybe tomorrow.”
And some… well… some we couldn’t quite pinpoint even if we tried. Life happened, what with its babies and bills and busyness and basketball practice and broken dishwashers and brash calendars.
Life got crazy. And you didn’t just push sex to the back burner. You pushed it right off the stove (ya didn’t really mean to, but that’s what happened).
And I also hear from pa-lenty of couples who are just exhausted and disillusioned with marriage, wrestling more with heartache and heaviness. Instead of resting with hope and happiness.
So whatever circumstances landed you at a sexually-dead marriage, maybe it’s time for a new perspective.
I’m an optimist to the core! Yeah for me! And yeah for you, if you’re still reading!
And I believe — genuinely believe — that nearly all sexually-dead marriages can be revived, if the two people in the mix are willing to walk in that direction.
5 Must-Try Tips for Reviving a Sexually-Dead Marriage:
1. Address the long-standing issues
I know. You hate it that I started here.
But if there are long-standing unresolved sexual struggles in your marriage, no better time than right now to start shedding light on those.
God is totally in the business of redeeming the pain of our past, whatever that may look like, and refining it into His vision for the future.
Your future likely includes hot passionate authentic sexual intimacy, if you’re willing to deal with and heal from whatever messed up sex for you in first place.
2. Pour yourself into friendship with your spouse
Everyone wants to know what I think is the secret to great sex. Most are surprised that my answer is friendship.
But not just any friendship. The kind of friendship where a husband and wife intentionally seek after each other’s company.
When was the last time you laughed with your spouse?
When was the last time the two of you did something fun together?
When was the last time you really felt like you had each other’s back, understood each other’s inside jokes, and longed for each other’s voice?
Well, my friend, hot sex is hottest when you have endearing friendship with the person who stood next to you at the altar. No lie. It is.
3. Embrace sexual freedom
Have you ever noticed that whenever “married” sex is referenced or portrayed in the media or entertainment, it’s often made out to be boring and void of any real pleasure?
Sadly, sex in a marriage is used as fodder for jokes, rather than laid out as a passionate opportunity for fun and oneness.
Within the exclusivity of your marriage, you have a lot of freedom to enjoy each other’s bodies. No one is privy to what’s going on when you shut that bedroom door, and that kind of privacy should inspire us to make the most of it.
As long as your sexual intimacy doesn’t involve any third parties (real, portrayed or imagined) and as long as neither you nor your spouse are finding pleasure in causing the other person pain (physical, emotional or spiritual), then you really have a lot of freedom to enjoy sex.
Embrace sexual passion. Enjoy each other’s bodies. Try different positions. Get crazy beneath those sheets. Get loud if you want. God is the author of orgasm and sexual arousal in a marriage. Well done, God. Well done.
4. Make your spouse’s orgasm of utmost importance!
I know the reason a lot of wives struggle with sex is they are rarely if ever having an orgasm, either because they don’t think their orgasm is important (insert sad face here) or they have a selfish husband (insert even sadder face here).
We could get rid of a lot of sexual apathy if both a husband and a wife took great care to help each other climax intensely. To do this well, you have to communicate and learn each other’s bodies.
A popular post I wrote was 3 Reasons Your Husband Likes It When You Climax. I also have a ton of helpful posts over on the orgasm page on my site.
5. Put sex high on the priority list
I’ve long said that healthy patterns are intentional and unhealthy patterns typically are unintentional (we drift into them rather than actively pursue them).
Here’s the deal — whichever way you go will become your normal if you go that way enough.
So if you are intentional about nurturing sexual intimacy and making it a priority often, then that will become your normal. If you are unintentional and let yourself drift into little or no sex, then that will become your normal.
What normal do you really want to be living?
As for me and my marriage, well… you can guess which normal we are loving and living!
One of my favorite posts of all time is Extraordinary Sex in Your Ordinary Life. You might find it encouraging too. Also consider Sheila Gregoire’s post Do I Have to Live in a Sexless Marriage?
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Copyright 2016, Julie Sibert. Intimacy in Marriage Blog. Links may be monetized.
I would love nothing more than to try the things on this list. It has been many months with zero intimacy. My problem is that I have been refused and rejected so many times over the past 10+ years that I am terrified of even suggesting trying again. Not sure I can make myself do it, too afraid of the answer.
I’m sure all of these things would work if both spouses tried it, especially the parts about sexual freedom and making sex a priority. At this point, I just don’t think it will happen in my marriage. Some women just don’t care much about sex, and thus won’t place much energy into it. I can’t help feeling like marriage is a trap for men sometimes. After all, how many men would get married if they went into it knowing what it would really be like? If I’d known my sex life would be so unfulfilling I would have run the other way full speed.
For anyone reading this, please try to understand what a sexually dead marriage is to most men….it’s a horrible existence full of despair, as well as possible loathing of your own self for needing sex so badly in the first place. It may not be too late for your marriage, so act now!
Broken & Broken, that’s where tips 1 & 2 come in. You need to talk together with your spouse and get the issue in the open. Then you need to start dating & courting again. Ask your partner to pick an activity for both of you to do together. Learn (re-learn) their likes and interests. Find things you enjoy in common. FLIRT! Talk. Spent time together like you did before the wedding. Let those old feelings build again and the intimacy and passion will return.
AMEN TO MENDED MARRIAGE! I am 68 man and have done many wrong things in my married life. We men so often defraud our wives by treating them nice before marriage but really slack off after the wedding. ( We have gotten our conquest) Hey, lets face it, marriage is not the perfect bliss we HOPED for ( fantasy) but it takes a lot of daily work to forgive those little foxes that can and do spoil the vines. Furthermore, I am not perfect either, although I wonder how often we don’t wonder why our wife is not perfect or normal like me. HA. Probably the most powerful things to do to restore a relationship is to forgive, seek forgiveness and to repent of our own sinful ways.Then to ask God to give us strength and wisdom to do the right thing. Happy Valentine’s Day !!!
I really hope that this approach works for some people.
I’ve been married a LONG time.
My suggestion is to start with #2.
And stick with it until your relationship feels really strong. Stick with it until you really like spending time together.
You can’t do # 1, 3, 4 and 5 with a stranger.
Well, most women can’t anyway.
Plus, if the friendship has strengthened (decreased resentment etc.) it will help you get through the tough times of menopause, ED, prostate cancer, or any other life changing issues.
From experience, my husband sexually shut down after his prostate surgery and since my menopause has ruined my sexual responses I sure am glad we built a strong # 2 🙂
I am so glad to find blogs out on the internet that actually talk about the fact that in some cases like mine, there has been no sex whatsoever, not even on the wedding night. I thought for the longest time that I was the only Christian out there with this problem and that it would ‘just happen’ naively till it was obvious that it wasn’t going to several months in. I struggled to bring it up with my husband even though we’d had two kinda discussions on the subject. Then I found blogs like these in a desperate search of Pinterest late last night and realized I wasn’t alone and that it wasn’t just my spouse’s responsibility to bring it up. I made a big step in starting with step 1 today before finding this article. Guess that means I’m finally on the right track.
Mended marriage, you are right but as one of the broke a wrote it’s easier when both spouses wants to. my wife and I had a baby 7 months ago and that has really affected our sex life, like many people know it will, but now after 7 months I would really like to have a normal sex life again but as I have understood from different blogs that won’t happen. I have tried to follow suggestions like this but in the end nothing happens anyway. I flirt with my wife, and I love
To do it, I try to help her as much I can, offering myself to take care of our daughter so that she can do something else( she always refuses, it seems to me
Like she thinks she is a bad mother of she is having fun without her daughter) , clean and etc. but that doesn’t help and especially when she doesn’t do anything like that. I need to get better to show affection and so on, hug her, kiss her but she isn’t so super willing either all the time so that really affects the intimacy in our marriage. I feel that I miss her because I feel distant from her but what can we do, we have a daughter that we need to take care of all the time so even if I try to follow these steps, in the end of both spouses don’t do it , it won’t work. My solution now is to pray that God will decrease my libido so it is in tune with hers, maybe in that way thinks will be easy. Maybe sex isn’t as important as some people say it is. All my life I have longed for the day when I would get married and sex wouldn’t be Tabu any more but now that I am here I realize that it doesn’t change very much. People make sex this huge thing but in the end it’s a huge disappointment. People who are going to get married should not only hear: live pure until your weddin day, they should also hear that all theire expectations on sex should be lowered with 99% and how awful it is for many women, how complicated it is and that it is not as important as people think. Then they would enter theire marriage with little or no expectations and that would maybe make them happier and enjoy sex in another way. I wish I would have lowered my expectations to 0 because having this dream of marriage and just see that it will never become that really stinks.
~Mended marriage: you are right on. The challenge for me has always been her decreased interest in romance and sexual intimacy. I am the romantic, she is not. In college, our fav song was “If you really love me, come on and let it show”. ha – back in late 60’s. But now, happy to say, we have influence of prayer to change each of us. We have taken dancing lessons – a shared pursuit that is very positive on many, ,many fronts.
What utterly useless advice! Number 4 in particular, striving to give your partner an orgasm is more likely to raise stress levels and reduce your enjoyment. Not all women are capable of having an orgasm and even in those that can, the pressure of their partner expecting one makes it all the more difficult and and totally removes the enjoyment. Sounds like this article was written by an old woman or priest who’s never had decent sex!
I’m with “broken hearted” my spirit is so tired of trying and trying and trying, and still I’m trying to get with my wife but ofcourse it’s been several years, you know what would be nice, is just someone to talk to (woman) just talk, im just so tired, im not even allowed to see her getting dressed in her bedroom but I do get a quick peck on the lip once a day but she quickly moves away after the peck, I can’t even explain how this makes me feel, like a dried prune no life in me!!!
I’m so lonely, im so lonely, im so lonely, I can’t try anymore, it’s hard when she doesn’t try back ?
So sad.
It has been extremely difficult. My husband is there but there is no physical connection. He doesn’t seem to want to even make an effort to talk. I am alone in my own marriage
Something that I realized is women are particularly good at reading or feeling mens resentment. The best thing that I did was realize that women fundamentally change after children for a multitude of reasons, some hormonal, some negative body image. They also lose the pre-child desire to put in effort to have sex, and more into making love, and it takes time to get them unwound. You have to make time and plans, be her friend, cuddle, give her a massage and bath, and treat her like a real woman instead of a f $@k doll. Let go of resentment and treat her really good, love on her, let her know that she’s special and most will reciprocate in kind. It’s not that they don’t want to make love, you just have to work to get the right hormones flowing and get them comfortable with themselves again!
I searched for this topic to hopefully find (like mentioned by someone above) that I’m not alone in my sexless, emotionless, peck on the cheek or even lips once a day, never even act like there is such a thing as sex marriage where I love my husband to death & enjoy every minute I spend with him. We have been married 22 years, dated for 2 before we got married, had the best relationship both sexual & friendly before marriage & on our wedding night it stopped (no sex on our wedding night, I too thought I was the only one in the world that had happened to) . We have gone “MONTHS” with no sexual contact or even sexual conversation and then he just pipes up & says do you want to have a date. I accept every time but I am so tired of accepting. I feel like his yo yo. I have talked & cried & threatened to leave, ive told him I feel like I live with my brother, ive tried it all & he says he understands & we have sex & then go right back to months of nothing just like we had never spoke. I am at a point where I practice telling him no, if we aren’t gonna have sex, we just aren’t gonna have it. I get used to no talk, no contact, nothing & then he decides he wants to & gets my hopes up that this is a start of a difference, only to be shot down again & on another several month drought.
Any suggestions ?